The Choice He Didn't Make
by jiyensa
Summary: "He could pretend that he wasn't here, that it wasn't happening. That it hadn't, at long last, come to this . . ." Slash. One-sided LV/SS.


**The Ever-Necessary Disclaimer**: I do not own these lovely characters. If I did, things would have ended differently.

My wish-fulfillment fantasy of how I wanted this scene to go, and what I imagined was going on in Voldemort's mind at the time. The dialogue is more or less identical to the scene from the book; I wanted it to be as close as possible.

Oh, and SLASHNESS! You have been warned.

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><p>For years, he had held one wand. Just one, needing no other. It had served him faithfully, like an extension of his own arm, an added piece to his soul(and he had given up so many others).<p>

He now held a wand of greater power, greater than any wand ever crafted. Smoothly wrought, a succession of knobs naturally formed from elder wood, the power of Death itself cored within. He should have felt invincible with this in his hand, complete.

He felt cold, and the wood felt cold against his skin. He surprised himself by missing that glittering spark of fire in the part of him he'd had to give up, and feeling suddenly off-balance without it.

"I have a problem, Severus," Voldemort said softly, turning the Elder Wand over, again and again, in his hands. He couldn't seem to stop toying with it, and it didn't warm no matter how long he touched it. It was as dead to him as a bone scoured clean.

"My Lord?"

Voldemort looked up at the other man, dimly lit by lantern and candlelight. His hands were graceful but detached as he held up the wand.

"Why doesn't it work for me, Severus?"

Not far off, Nagini responded to the agitation in her master's voice, hissing in her bubble sanctuary. Voldemort spared a glance to his faithful familiar, locking briefly with her golden eyes.

"My . . . My Lord? I do not understand. You . . . You have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

The incredibly unreadable mask that his other 'faithful' servant could so easily summon up usually didn't annoy Voldemort as much as it did now. Perhaps it was the urgency the Dark Lord felt, this panic that had been subtly building as the answer to all of his trouble slowly became clear, or perhaps it was simply that the other man was being so obviously obtuse.

"No," he disagreed coldly, bitterly, and if he had to admit it to himself, disgustedly. Some part of him snarled within at the knowledge that he could not simply _will_ the wand to serve him. It should be so; _he_ was master here. It _should_ be so. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand . . . No. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Ollivander all those years ago."

A strange calm had settled over him when he finally realized the answer, and it held, but barely. A static filling the inside of his mind, and Voldemort could not allow himself to focus on it. Consciously, to admit why would have the same result, because if he looked, and if he admitted why he dared not, either would shatter the meager shield that held something raging and chaotic at bay just beneath the smooth-as-glass surface.

"No difference," he repeated.

He stood; his hybrid body was lithe, and he was grateful for it. Grateful that there was so little to feel as he paced, his footsteps barely making a sound but the softness of his boots sparing him entirely from feeling himself. He could pretend that he wasn't here, that it wasn't happening. That it hadn't, at long last, come to this.

"I have thought long and hard, Severus . . . Do you know why I have called you back from battle?"

Voldemort didn't have to look at Severus. Severus wasn't looking at him. Voldemort couldn't fathom why the other wizard looked to the snake. His followers sometimes did things like this, looked away from him, as if looking at their lord would suddenly be interpreted as a challenge, would set him off in some way. Voldemort had never been near so volatile as his followers perceived him, but it had always been useful for them to believe him so. That would've made this easier, succumbing to fierce bouts of rage that would render it over and done with before he even knew what _had _been done.

"No, my Lord, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Potter."

"You sound like Lucius," And that sickened him. Severus was _not_ Lucius, nothing like that pandering peacock of a man. "Neither of you understands Potter as I do," Voldemort snapped. "He does not need finding. Potter will come to me. I know his weakness, you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."

Potter's flaw; not his. Never his. The Dark Lord could kill with impunity, without remorse, without so much as a second thought. _That _was power; the ability to do what must be done, to be entirely willing and able. To _be_ master, and not to be mastered.

"But my Lord, he might be killed accidentally by one other than yourself . . ."

"My instructions to my Deatheaters have been perfectly clear. Capture Potter. Kill his friends-the more, the better-but do not kill him."

Truth be told, there was yet the possibility. Some of his Deatheaters _were_ impulsive fools, and if it came to it, he could punish them, but it would remain an irreparable loss for his true victory to be stolen from him by one of his own. But, according to prophesy, he needn't worry, and that had to be enough of an assurance for now. It had never been so much that he put much stock in destiny. He just preferred to cover every possibility, prepare for every outcome.

He should've prepared more thoroughly.

Voldemort finally turned to the other wizard, his supposed servant, and Severus finally met his eyes. Even amongst magic folk, Voldemort had never seen anyone with eyes the color of pure obsidian, every bit as sharp. Every bit as opaque. The same shade as his limp black hair, contrasting so completely to the pallor of his flesh; he looked dead already.

"But it is of you that I wished to speak, Severus, not Harry Potter. You have been . . ." He searched for the words. Whatever they were supposed to be, they should have been easier to say, "very valuable to me. Very valuable."

"My Lord knows I seek only to serve him." _The master of pretty lies. _"But . . . Let me go and find the boy, my Lord. Let me bring him to you. I know I can . . ."

"I have told you, no!" Voldemort hissed, his fists clenched so hard that his long nails bit into his palms. He stalked up to Severus, ignoring, as he always did, that the man loomed over him, five inches taller. "My concern at the moment, Severus, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"

"My Lord, there can be no question, surely . . ?"

This was an act; it had to be. Voldemort glared at him.

" . . . but there _is_ a question, Severus. There is."

Looking away, at nothing, really, Voldemort shifted the wand through his fingers. The cold, dead wand, that condescended to let his will pass through it, that and nothing more. It was a remarkable parallel.

"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Harry Potter?"

"I . . . I cannot answer that, my Lord."

"Can't you?"

A sharp jab of rage shot through him, momentarily cracking that hard-wrought shield. He looked at Severus again.

"My wand of yew did everything of which I asked it, Severus, except to kill Harry Potter. Twice it failed. Ollivander told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Lucius's wand shattered upon meeting Potter's."

"I . . . I have no explanation, my Lord."

Again, Severus looked away, and Voldemort felt something blood red and wrathful curling deep within him, readying. _Look at me, damn you. Look._

"I sought a third wand, Severus. The Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from it's previous master. I took it from the grave of Albus Dumbledore."

"My Lord . . . Let me go to the boy . . ."

The boy. The precious boy. _He_ was supposed to be the obstacle to overcome. _He_ was supposed to be the only thing between Voldemort and his triumph. This was not about the boy, and they both knew it.

"All this long night, when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," said Voldemort, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "wondering, wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for it's rightful owner . . . And I think I have the answer."

Severus didn't speak, and didn't look at him, but Voldemort couldn't take his eyes off the other man, who held himself stone-still before the man he had once sworn to serve with every fiber of his being. Voldemort was no fool, at least not when it came to the loyalties of his people. Severus had not been loyal for a very long time.

"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Severus." Truth be told, Voldemort did not think that Severus had actually planned it this way. Had he, the traitor could've found a way to take the wand from him. Yet, the circumstance should have made things simple. "You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."

He said this bitterly, staring hard into the other man's eyes. There had never been any true confirmation-whatever tangled part Severus Snape played in this game, he played it well-but Voldemort had always _known_. He'd known long before Dumbledore's conniving Order's plans mysterious began to correlate with his own. He'd known before Severus slid from fierce and earnest to cold and unreadable.

He'd known the moment the man pleaded for the mudblood woman's life.

"My Lord . . ."

Despite that, Voldemort kept him. There were a variety of reasons. Severus, even as he spied for the Order, had to spy for him, too. He still had to play his part, to obey 'his Lord's' every command. In giving the illusion that he was of use, he had to _be_ of use. And Voldemort enjoyed having him. The man was in a position more precarious than any of his other followers, and yet managed to maintain so much more dignity. And that dignity was an illusion-Severus hated himself-but he carried it so well that the Dark Lord couldn't help but be pleased with him.

So many reasons . . .

It shattered then. Once he looked, there was no turning away, no pretending that what waited did not exist.

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Severus, because I am not it's true master."

He should've been thinking only of his victory, carrying out the steps to it without second thoughts. The source of victory in his hands, cold but waiting.

"The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed it's last owner." He forced the words out, forced his cold to be cold, empty, deciding. "You killed Albus Dumbledore. While you live, Severus, the Elder Wand cannot be truly mine."

"My Lord!" Severus protested. He raised his wand, but Voldemort didn't see that. He saw, for the first time since . . . Since the night he realized the truth . . . _fear_ in his false servant's eyes. He remembered that night, this man desperate, prostrated before him, pleading. He remembered another night, long before that one, and a younger man, barely out of school, brought before him, swearing earnestly to be his. A lie; the only lie Voldemort ever _wanted_ to hear.

A violent shudder wracked Voldemort's body, and he nearly dropped that all but useless wand. He'd known, he'd always known it would come to this, and always told himself _Tomorrow; he can die tomorrow_. Voldemort didn't know what moment he would have chosen, but it wouldn't have been this one. There may indeed have been a part of him that thought, were he victorious, it would simply give Severus no other option than to continue to serve him forever, but now there was no question. It wasn't the matter of the boy any longer; it was this man, and this wand, and Voldemort knew he should've settled the choice long ago.

This was the violent non-thinking that his Deatheaters expected, but instead of killing the man in front of him, Voldemort snarled and turned, summoning the glittering ball that contained his familiar to him. An accomplished wizard didn't need to speak to disapparate, and with the school's defenses weakened, it took no effort at all to wrench himself far, far away.

His legs didn't catch him as well as they usually would have when they hit what remained of old wooden floorboards of his mother's birth home. Dusty air filled his mouth and nostrils as he lost his balance and fell to his knees. Nagini's ball bounced through the air beside him like a careless balloon; Voldemort muttered the word of release as and afterthought, and his snake fell harmlessly to the ground, watching him with concern that would be obvious even to someone that couldn't read her as he could.

There had been the distant roar of battle in his ears, but suddenly there was only silence that mimicked that humming non-thought that he'd been fighting for hours. It almost seemed more quiet for the harmless echo of crickets outside the dusty broken window; where there had been candlelight, lanterns, and the bursts of magical fire to light the night, he now sat in moon touched darkness. Where there had been a pair of armies clashing against each other, he now sat almost entirely alone.

Voldemort heard his own breathing, slow gasps that stirred the dust in a white-twilight beam. A moment ago, he had been a wizard warlord on the verge of a great victory. The Elder Wand was still clutched in his hand. Voldemort cast it violently aside and, looking down at his trembling white hands, let out an anguished scream.

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><p>Hope everyone enjoyed. Originally this was the prequel to a longer story, but I got busy andor lazy. Thanks for reading.


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